Type 1 What was type 1 treatment like 20-30 years ago?

[TheBigNewt]

Does anyone but me remember using "ultralente" as a once daily basal shot before Lantus came out? I was put on it almost right away in 1984. Lantus was approved by the FDA here in 2000 so I used ultralente for 15 years and it worked fine. What it was was a regular animal insulin mixed with some protein or something that it stuck to so it was absorbed very slowly. You mixed it before filling the syringe. And I could add some regular if I were going to eat breakfast right afterward. I injected in the morning just like I do Lantus. And it was cheap too. I'm pretty sure you can't get it anymore which is sort of too bad because Lantus is freaking expensive at least here if you don't have insurance. I got it in vials. Now I get the "generic" Basaglar in pens actually for less money because I changed my prescription dose so I got more pens with the same 90 day copay, so they last 6 months now instead of 3. I'm learning how to play the drug insurance game!

 

[Draco16]

How does the Dexcom connect to the Apple watch? I'm interested in both devices. thanks in advance.

Hi there, so I have the Dexcom G5 and there is an iPhone app that acts as the receiver for the data to give readings. But there is also a dedicated Apple Watch Dexcom app where you can also have the readings (every 5 mins) streamed through to. The reading is either subtly on the watch face, or tap into the watch app and you get the trend charts on your wrist as well.

While checking your phone is generally no great hardship, when I want to be discrete in meetings, etc it's just as if i'm checking the time. But incredibly useful when driving, cycling, running, climbing... lots of activities really.

You do need to keep the phone within a few metres of the watch for it to transmit (G5 to phone to watch), though I did read somewhere that Dexcom are working on G5 direct to Apple Watch transmission.

I love it!

 

[himtoo]

Hi Himtoo, In 1972 you could get rolls of glucose tablets roughly the size and thickness of a Trebor Extra Strong Mint in a tube about three quarters the length. The tubes were yellow and black bands with a Boots logo and Glucose Tablets written in red capital letters. For me, the effect of putting one in the mouth (they were as smooth as finishing plaster), was a horrible mixture of cold plaster and sweet metallic dust. I'm glad you didn't experience this!

I was living in the USA at the time so I don't recall them being available.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

I was living in the USA at the time so I don't recall them being available.

Guess ole Jesse Boot didn't cross the pond!

 

[kev-w]

October 84 for me, I hadn't had my full bike licence long but had it suspended for a few months, leaving me cycling to work for 07.30 starts, insulin syringes & bottles of pork insulin and a mix one (you rolled it till it mixed) in the fridge and a new girlfriend leaving my flat when she went in the fridge for milk, the diabetes clinic with loads look away now Nokindofsuzie of old amputee cases shuffling down the blood testing queue, Sister Muriel (with the build of an 80s prop forward) sending you to the WRVS shop for biscuits if your blood was low, Dr Bingle retiring & Dr Thow taking over, Humilin S & Humalin I & fingerprickers electronic meters (brilliant ), the clinic being delayed whilst being re-located and moved again, insulin penfils first being prescribed by the gp but needles from the hospital only, being discharged to the GP and the GP re-referring me (cost cutting, everybody was discharged from the new 'multi million pound diabetes centre') Human Insulatard & to Lantus, Humalin s to Humalog ( horrid stuff Humalin S), reviews at the GP and the nurse saying she only saw T2's and not understanding what I was doing there, Retinal screening, flu jabs and B&D stopping making 12mm pen tips, there's been some changes in my 33 years of the infliction.

Could be worse, a lot worse, imagine this thread a hundred years back

 

[Smallbrit]

Wow. Thanks for all your really interesting stories - there's lots of little snippets that brought back memories of diabetes things in our house that you just take for granted - until you realise they're not in everyone's houses!

@Grant_Vicat That's an amazing photo!

 

[O_DP_T1]

I was diagnosed at the age if 3 in 1975 and vaguely remember the below, at 5 I was sent on a week long camp with other kids to learn how to manage my diabetes carb count, inject, test blah blah blah.

I was put on the 2 twice a day premixed insulin which you did with disposable syringe around 30 years ago aged 12ish, and was using this (pretty well tbh) until just before Christmas where I switched to basal/bolus and MDI and insulin pens.

I was diagnosed in 1972, aged 6. I can remember glass and metal syringes that needed to be boiled before every use. using a cloudy insulin and clear insulin, had to draw it out of the vials, (cloudy long lasting clear fast acting. Different strengths of insulin as well. Doing urine tests (5 drops of urine and ten drops of water then a fizzy tablet that turned the mix a colour, blue being good orange being bad. Never knew what your sugars were until you hasd the "lie detector" test when you seen your Diabetic doctor for your HBA1c. Having to eat at specific times and having to inject at different times. Oh, nearly forget the **** needles....like darning needles which were VERY long and really not very sharp and had to use them for a week. Used to have a book of the dietitian with food in there which had the "portions" per food item. Allowed a certain amount of "portions" for each meal and having to eat a "portion" between meals.
Things have moved on a LOT lol.
Can vaguely remember going from testing urine to testing blood (cant recall the year). I also remember the outcry in the national papers saying about the cost of the "New Tests" for diabetes. Pretty much the same as the Libre is doing now in the UK

 

[O_DP_T1]

Forgot to mention, if you were being difficult as a kid taking injections you would have been held down and given one using something like this. My folks had one for me. Tbh I was a difficult diabetic kid, as I just wanted to be 'normal'.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Forgot to mention, if you were being difficult as a kid taking injections you would have been held down and given one using something like this. My folks had one for me. Tbh I was a difficult diabetic kid, as I just wanted to be 'normal'.

Blimey I remember the adverts in Balance! They were advertised as the "Palmer Injector Gun" and I think they were 37/6 which in those days equalled £1.87 and a half pence. Bearing in mind a KitKat cost 2.5 pence, that's a lot to fork out for this gadget, of which the name enough was enough to make me run a marathon.

 

[O_DP_T1]

Yep the good ole 70's.

Diabetics diagnosed today have it much better then the ole days of torture!!!! LOL

 

[Element137]

Have to say, got to admire everyone's resilience, fascinating to see how things have progressed.

 

[porl69]

Forgot to mention, if you were being difficult as a kid taking injections you would have been held down and given one using something like this. My folks had one for me. Tbh I was a difficult diabetic kid, as I just wanted to be 'normal'.

Oh my word I sooo remember that gun. 8 years old and was taking ages to inject myself. Would hold the point of the needle in my stomach and be crying saying that it hurt too much. My father bought me one. It came and I got it out if the box and BANG I tried it and thought no bloody way is that going anywhere near me. My father came home from work and asked if I had tried the new gun... Nope not a chance. Well my dad said if he done it then would I??? I agreed to that. My dad was a 18 stone ex para, a real tough cookie. I had been messing with the settings and had it to go in REALLY deep. My dad loaded the syringe and pulled the trigger into his belly and he yellped!!! Needless to say there was no way I was going to do it after my dad has yelped. Back in the box and put away never to be seen again lol

 

[himtoo]

Oh my word I sooo remember that gun. 8 years old and was taking ages to inject myself. Would hold the point of the needle in my stomach and be crying saying that it hurt too much. My father bought me one. It came and I got it out if the box and BANG I tried it and thought no bloody way is that going anywhere near me. My father came home from work and asked if I had tried the new gun... Nope not a chance. Well my dad said if he done it then would I??? I agreed to that. My dad was a 18 stone ex para, a real tough cookie. I had been messing with the settings and had it to go in REALLY deep. My dad loaded the syringe and pulled the trigger into his belly and he yellped!!! Needless to say there was no way I was going to do it after my dad has yelped. Back in the box and put away never to be seen again lol

that is a history of type one in the 1970's in one paragraph........... hugs @porl69 - we all been there x

 

[Madmaureen]

Ahhh memories memories that blue injection tube remember it so well - all of it! how Dickensian it all looks.
How much better it is now progress eh?
How did I survive it all?

 

[Scott-C]

Were any of you old timers lucky enough to have a shot of Dr Arnold Kadish's first ever insulin pump? We have indeed come a long way...

 

[EllieM]

I was diagnosed at 8 in 1970. My mother had been a T1 for 12 years so she diagnosed me really early (did a urine test after I'd asked for water in the middle of the night) and dragged me off to the doctor for some blood tests. I still remember being told that even if the blood tests came up negative I'd have to have another test to make sure, so I naively hoped that I'd be confirmed diabetic so that I wouldn't have to have any more blood tests.... (Just goes to show how naive/gullible 8 year olds are). I went to hospital for a week to be "balanced", and the doctors decided it would be a good time for my Mum to go in too to be rebalanced, so we were in together, though she was in a different ward. (Obviously the rebalancing was just an excuse so we could be in together). I remember being proud because the other children had to learn on oranges, but I was a "brave" girl who could do her own injections without starting on oranges.
My mother had the reusable syringes, but plastic ones were available, if you paid for them, so I had plastic ones from the start. Diabetes was something that was "normal" in our family, I didn't find out about complications till I was much older, my parents organised things so that I was doing everything that my friends did and I got a colouring book instead of easter eggs at Easter. (Luckily my older brother and I had never spent our pocket money on sweets, so that wasn't an issue.) My first hypo was scary as I hallucinated a bit, but my family knew what to do so I was fine. And hypos were really really rare in those days, presumably because the only sugar test was those morning and night urine tests. (I really hated getting the test tube clean after the test.) I remember memorising the blue book of "carbohydate values of proprietory foods" and carb counting with fixed amounts for breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, supper. I had two animal insulins, one cloudy (lente???), but I was allowed to mix them so I only had one injection.
I never had any diabetic hospital admissions, other than diagnosis, and probably the scariest time my family had was when I was a preteen on a family holiday in Scotland. We all went on a walk and the mist came down. My mother got worried that we'd be stuck out there overnight and apparently worked out that if the worst case happened she'd got enough glucose so that I at least would be OK, but not her... Needless to say I knew none of this at the time though certainly picked up that she was worried!

The biggest change in my diabetic care came when I went to Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge as a young adult. They introduced me to this awesome gadget called a glucometer.... They then got me moved onto the current system of one long acting insulin and varied short acting before meals, which gave me more flexibility.

Complications? Well, my eyes aren't perfect, though they're not bad enough to laser, but that's about it. I suspect my kidneys aren't perfect either. Given my periods of poor diabetic control in the past, I think I'm pretty lucky, but I'm certainly proof that you don't have to have perfect diabetic control to lead a normal life and still maintain good health after nearly 50 years of diabetes.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

Were any of you old timers lucky enough to have a shot of Dr Arnold Kadish's first ever insulin pump? We have indeed come a long way...

View attachment 24917

Looks like it belongs in early Star Trek!

 

[leahkian]

I got diabetes in 1979 and at the time off going to hospital was given a 50/50 chance, i can remember the beep the infusion made in them days. My parents had the orange to get used to giving me my insulin in the glass injection and having to clean it after every use and getting blood taken with a spear everyday. I remember my first night time hypo and the local GP came out and was trying to force me to eat another biscuit but he went out of house to his car and my dad put it behind the couch, my mam went into the toilet and cried i did not know this as i was feeling ill after it. I remember getting a tingling feeling in my feet when my sugar was going low, the first BM machine i got was £85 which some of my family and freinds did the great north run to raise the money and i got a finger pricker which was shaped like a 90 degree angle with the small needle being fired down by a spring and by god did it work you never had to do it twice. As the 90's came animal insulin was replaced by man made insulin and there was a choice getting to the end of the 90's and 2 injections went to 4 injections, but it seemed that every time you had a problem they would try a new insulin. I remember being in hospital when i first got it you had a full english breakfast and before leaving this list of things i could not eat and i was told how many grams i was to take at different times of the day, i was allowed chocolate by my parents as i was always playing football or some sport but one day when the fair came i had some candy floss by god did i pay for it i was ill after eating it. I never thought how my parents coped with it and i only had 1 granparent alive and i would come home from school for my dinner and me and my dad would go to hers, it was a dinner mon-thur and a Friday was fish and chip day. She passed away when i was 7 but i was told how she would get very upset when my BS went low but she only lived a 100 yards away and i was thankful for that. How times have changed in the 80's you never new many diabetics but now it is more wide spread and the progress being made is great but those early years never leave you and now when i look back i think why could they not have a pump like they do now. I know people who have just got diabetes and have trouble with it but you did not get that choice it was like the army you were given your orders and had to obay.

 

[rochari]

Thanks to smallbrit for starting this thread because the memories have been flooding back for me.

I was diagnosed in the winter of 1964 into 1965 and as a wee boy I grew up in a household where both my mother and grandmother were type 1’s.

In those days there were two types of glass syringe nozzle fittings so you had to make sure you got the right needles prescribed. The older fitting was called ‘Record’ and mother and gran used that type of syringe. The one I had was ‘luer’ fitting which I think must have been the most up to date at that time! I agree about the size of the needles and that each was expected to last about a week.

I got the Palmer Injector Gun as a gift that first Christmas and hated it. Like others in this thread, I was scared to pull its trigger. It was an instrument of torture and mines is now at rest in a little diabetic museum they have at the local hospital. Hypoguard, another company of the time, also had an injection aid (a small silver steel tube contraption) which I found easier. I feel sure that Hypoguard also made the little blue plastic travel case in the photograph Grant_VIcat posted in this thread but I might be wrong.

To test for ketones in those days it was tiny little Acetest tablets, which I think are still in use. The little plastic Ames Clinitest kit I still have somewhere and is well over 50 years old.

Other memories are the little set of food scales given to me by the hospital when I was discharged and with it the diet sheet. It was the bible. It only allowed tiny amounts of butter and cheese each day (which I find odd now because like all newly diagnosed type 1’s in those days I was tiny and stick thin and needed to get some weight on). The sheet clearly stated that potatoes were to be no larger than a hen’s egg! Every lunchtime part of my allowance was fruit but on a Sunday my mother swapped the portion and it was a small 6d block of Walls ice cream WITHOUT the wafers.

I think my first insulin was called Lente and was taken once-a-day.

Bill

 

[Scott-C]

Can vaguely remember going from testing urine to testing blood (cant recall the year). I also remember the outcry in the national papers saying about the cost of the "New Tests" for diabetes. Pretty much the same as the Libre is doing now in the UK

That's really interesting about the press outcry about the move to strips. The same probably happened with the move from colour changing strips to those oh so expensive electronic meters.Looks like history is repeating itself with libre.

Whenever there's something new, someone will always whine about it, just....because...

Just as there was fuss and bother about moves from urine testing to strips to meters, all of which faded away, I'm pretty sure that the new kid on the block will be accepted and everyone will forget why it was ever doubted.

I'm a relative newbie in this compared to you guys, dx'd 1988, but I do still remember my then dsn Sister Carmichael explaining how the colour changing strips were expensive so it made sense to cut them in half to get twice as much (and, bonus for me, half a strip needs less blood!).

I got a bit nostalgic a few months back and bought some Glucoflex R colour changing strips. Only used a couple for old times sake, but I'd forgotten just how much damned blood each one needs! And also the artistry involved in lancing, squeezing, hovering the finger over the strip, carefully applying. It seems almost like an Olympic sport compared to the suck it up capillary action of modern strips!

The makers seem to have cottoned on to the cutting in half gig, though. They're a lot narrower now, you'd need some professional cutting equipment now to half them, not just mum's knitting and sewing scissors!